Wrongly Imprisoned Former Rep. Steve Stockman Files Appeal

Former Republican Congressman Steve Stockman is fighting back against The Swamp. He was targeted by powerful Democrats and wrongly convicted of misusing nonprofit funds. Corrupt, left-leaning prosecutors in the Department of Justice went after him because he called for the arrest of the IRS’s Lois Lerner, was the first to expose Obama’s ransom payment for Bowe Bergdahl, and aggressively rooted out corruption under both Bill Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies. He made the Drudge Report during his most recent term in office more than any other House member. The reality is, Stockman complied with very complex, technical laws — but prosecutors chose to interpret those laws differently in order to confuse the jury. Now, Stockman is fighting back from prison, where he is serving a 10 year sentence. His attorneys filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week.

What happened was Stockman solicited funds for nonprofits with which he was affiliated with in order to set up a conservative youth political training program. One of the nonprofits put out a mailer explaining the differences in positions between himself and his opponent while running for U.S. Senate in Texas. Prosecutors claimed the mailer constituted “express advocacy” and so violated campaign finance law since it was put out by a nonprofit. But the mailer never said vote for Stockman. It merely laid out, educationally, the differences between the two candidates. The well-known 1976 campaign case Buckley v. Valeo states that express advocacy must contain words like “vote for,” “elect,” “support,” “vote against,” etc. The mailer contained none of those words.

The prosecution cleverly referred to Stockman’s nonprofits as “sham nonprofits,” in order to taint the jury. They didn’t bother telling the jury that nonprofits could send out educational mailers. The IRS states about nonprofits, “Certain 'voter education' activities conducted in a non-partisan manner may not constitute prohibited political activity under section 501(c)(3) of the Code.” The prosecution also said Stockman was guilty of “materially misrepresenting” what he was soliciting funds for. But they never identified any material misrepresentations. So there was no fraud. The donors knew what their money was going for. Unfortunately for Stockman, one of the two donors in question died before the trial started so he could not be questioned. The prosecution used that to their advantage. Prosecutors also threw in the vague counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Those are commonly alleged when prosecutors don’t have a good case against someone and need to throw in some catchalls. They merely mean that someone used the mail or telephone/internet while they were committing a crime, and money transferred places while a crime was being committed. The problem with those counts is Stockman did not commit any crimes, so those counts are meaningless.

Prosecutors confused the jury by giving them incorrect jury instructions. They gave them the impression that any activity that could be considered “political” in nature was illegal. They also made it appear that any money spent by a nonprofit that benefited an individual was illegal. They tricked the jury. Stockman was also convicted of filing a false tax return. But similar to campaign finance filings, usually there is an opportunity for the filer to amend it; the government doesn’t go into full prosecution mode. Stockman failed to report as income money given to his nonprofit for the youth education center. But he wasn’t receiving any income. It certainly doesn’t fit the definition of income, and he had no reason to think it was required to be included, so his actions weren’t willful and consequently didn’t fit the definition of filing a false tax return.

This comes down to the First Amendment. Stockman had a free speech right to raise and spend money for nonprofit organizations and political campaigns. Campaign finance and related laws were distorted and used against him to destroy his career and stop him. If corrupt DOJ prosecutors can get away with taking him down, who’s next? There are plenty of conservative activist members of Congress. This can now happen to any of them if it’s not corrected. Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump need to thoroughly clean out the DOJ from top to bottom. Hopefully the appeals court will see through this witch hunt, reverse the conviction and punish the prosecutors. Maybe if some prosecutors go to jail this kind of abuse will finally stop.

https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2019/05/27/wrongly-imprisoned-former-rep-steve-stockman-files-appeal-n2546915

>>6601054

Indeed! I suspect most will be shocked in normie land when they see how badly justice system was used to subvert the rule of law.

>>6601081

Democrats Side With Russia With Hopes of Trashing Trump.

Democrat Congressmen are now siding with Russia just to spurn the President

Watching the complete collapse of the Democrats’ Russia narrative has been something to behold. Stoked by their fervent disdain for the current President of the United States, the party whipped up its base into an anti-Russian frenzy. President Trump was the “Manchurian Candidate,” a Russian operative planted by Putin to subvert American democracy and pervert our most sacred institutions. According to liberals, the New York billionaire’s alleged collusion with Russia disqualified him as a legitimate president and, to save the Republic, he needed to be removed from office as soon as possible. Then the Muller Report was released, and in an instant, the story shattered. Now, they are scrambling to pick up the pieces.

The current calls for the President’s impeachment is an attempt to do just that: deflect attention away from the Left’s embarrassing display of “Russian collusion” sophistry with a healthy dose of fodder for their base of support. It is too late to turn back. Democrat supporters have bought into the Trump-Russia narrative whole hog—not only as a rationale for why their beloved Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 but also as a tool to justify their irrational, seething hatred for the President.

The plan was to slot the narrative into their 2020 election strategy. But now that the story is clearly a hoax, liberals have two options: abandon ship or double down. Clearly, they are choosing the latter. But this decision presents some serious problems for left. Namely, how can they reconcile their hatred for Republicans with their hatred for Russia, especially when the two are working against each other? The truth is regardless of the President’s sometimes-laudatory language toward Putin the man, the U.S. government’s policies towards Putin the president have reflected an entirely different tone.

Despite the liberals’ attempts to paint the Republican party as Russian sycophants, conservatives have imposed a bevy of new sanctions on Russia and are working with Trump to curb the nation’s influence in the Middle East. That puts Democrats in a double bind. They can’t attack Russia without supporting conservative efforts against Putin, and they can’t attack Republican policies without appearing soft on Russia.

For a clear illustration of this conundrum, look to Rep. Adam Smith’s (D-WA) awkward handling of the Launch Service Agreement (LSA). The LSA is an effort to reduce Russia’s influence over America’s space program. Currently, the United States relies primarily on Russian rockets for all major spacefaring activities. This dependency presents a risk to America’s national security. President Trump’s Department of Defense, spearheaded by the United States Air Force, is working to nullify this threat. The LSA program presents Rep. Smith with a sticky situation because as the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, it is his responsibility to help ensure America’s continued security. But as a loyal Democrat, he is also obligated to fight the President’s agenda at every turn.

For Smith, the LSA is where these two objectives diverge.He was forced to choose who to oppose: Russia or the Republican Administration. Unfortunately for the nation, party politics won the day, and Smith became a virulent critic of the Launch Service Agreement. In an apparent attempt to delegitimize the Administration’s handling of the program, Rep. Smith called for extensive delays and investigations to the Launch Service Agreement. Despite the Air Force’s unequivocal assertion that program delays may weaken America’s national security, Smith fumbled on as a dutiful member of the Trump Resistance, sacrificing the interests of the United States as a result.

Now the entire Democratic party finds themselves in a similar situation. With the disintegration of their Russian collusion messaging, liberals have been forced to recognize that their theory about a Trump-Russia conspiracy is baseless. But for them, that degree of cognitive dissonance is too much. The Left can’t bear to fathom that Trump isn’t the boogeyman they suspected him to be. So, faced with the facts, the only alternative is to push the lie. Congressional Democrats don’t really care about the lack of evidence for collusion, and they don’t care about the harm their deception is causing the country. Instead, they apparently believe that if they that if they shout “IMPEACHMENT” loud enough, then maybe, just maybe, they can satiate the voracious anti-Trump sentiments of their base. The Left desperately needs Trump to be the enemy, and they won’t let facts stand in their way of achieving that goal.

https://humanevents.com/2019/05/25/democrats-side-with-russia-with-hopes-of-trashing-trump/

>>6601342

The Air Force Launch Plan Must Work

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/04/the-air-force-launch-plan-must-work/